9.3. Reading activity:

a) Can the choice of shot and camera movement influence the structure and meaning of a film?

b) What shots do you know?

c) Who created the Steadicam?

d) What does the Steadicam mean?

g) Have you used the Steadicam?

h) What was the reason for creation the Steadicam?

4. . Translate from Russian into English:

Движение камеры играет значительную роль в создании эмоционального образа фильма и его влияния на аудиторию. Такие технические приёмы кинооператора как выбор кадра движения камеры могут значительно повлиять на структуру и значение фильма.

Unit 10

10.1. Discuss in class the following question:

Close

What special effects do you know?

10.2. Read and translate the text: Special effects

The first special effects in the cinema were created while the film was being shot. These came to be known as "in-camera" effects. For examples of many in-camera special effects, see the work of early filmmaker Georges Méliès.

Later, optical and digital effects were developed so that editors and visual effects artists could more tightly control the process by manipulating the film in post-production:

1. 3-D film for movie history

2. 3-D computer graphics

3. Bluescreen/Chroma key

4. Bullet time

5. Computer-generated imagery

6. Digital compositing

7. Optical effects

8. Stereoscopy for 3D technical details

9. Stop trick

10. Stop motion

10.3. Reading activity:

1. What does in-camera effect mean?

2. What optical effect do you know?

3. What digital effects are very popular now?

Unit 11

11.1. Translate definitions of words:

footage - /`fʊtɪdʒ/ - film of a particular subject or event, length of film stock (метраж)

ramp - /ræmp/ - to increase something such as a rate or level

inverse - /,ɪn`vɜː(r)s/ - changing in the opposite way to something else, especially in position, size, or amount

capture - /`kæptʃə(r)/ - to catch someone or something

slapstick - /`slæp,stɪk/ - humour that is based on physical actions such as people hitting each other or falling over, rather than on the clever use of language, (фарс)

frenetic - /frə`netɪk/ - done very fast and with a lot of energy, often by someone who is in a hurry

11.2. Discuss in class the following questions:

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1. Is frame rate selection important for film presentation?

2. What frame rate is the most popular now?

11.3. Read and translate the text: Frame rate selection

Motion picture images are presented to an audience at a constant speed. In the theater it is 24 frames per second, in NTSC (US) Television it is 30 frames per second (29.97 to be exact), in PAL (Europe) television it is 25 frames per second. This speed of presentation does not vary.

However, by varying the speed at which the image is captured, various effects can be created knowing that the faster or slower recorded image will be played at a constant speed.

For instance, time-lapse photography is created by exposing an image at an extremely slow rate. If a cinematographer sets a camera to expose one frame every minute for four hours, and then that footage is projected at 24 frames per second, a four hour event will take 10 seconds to present, and one can present the events of a whole day (24 hours) in just one minute.

The inverse of this, if an image is captured at speeds above that at which they will be presented, the effect is to greatly slow down (slow motion) the image. If a cinematographer shoots a person diving into a pool at 96 frames per second, and that image is played back at 24 frames per second, the presentation will take 4 times as long as the actual event. Extreme slow motion, capturing many thousands of frames per second can present things normally invisible to the human eye, such as bullets in flight and shockwaves travelling through media, a potentially powerful cinematographical technique.

In motion pictures the manipulation of time and space is a considerable contributing factor to the narrative storytelling tools. Film editing plays a much stronger role in this manipulation, but frame rate selection in the photography of the original action is also a contributing factor to altering time. For example, Modern times by Charles Chaplin was shot at "silent speed" (18 fps) but projected at "sound speed" (24 fps), which makes the slapstick action appear even more frenetic.

When sound film was introduced in 1926, variations in film speed were no longer tolerated as the human ear is more sensitive to changes in audio frequency. From 1927 to 1930, the rate of 24 FPS became standard for 35 mm sound film; a speed of 456 millimetres (18.0 in) per second. This allowed for simple two-blade shutters to give a projected series of images at 48 per second. Many modern 35 mm film projectors use three-blade shutters to give 72 images per second—each frame flashed on screen three times.

Speed ramping, or simply "ramping", is a process whereby the capture frame rate of the camera changes over time. For example, if in the course of 10 seconds of capture, the capture frame rate is adjusted from 60 frames per second to 24 frames per second, when played back at the standard film rate of 24 frames per second, a unique time-manipulation effect is achieved. For example, someone pushing a door open and walking out into the street would appear to start off in slow-motion, but in a few seconds later within the same shot the person would appear to walk in "realtime" (normal speed). The opposite speed-ramping is done in The Matrix when Neo re-enters the Matrix for the first time to see the Oracle. As he comes out of the warehouse "load-point", the camera zooms in to Neo at normal speed but as it gets closer to Neo's face, time seems to slow down, foreshadowing the manipulation of time itself within the Matrix later in the movie.

In the motion picture industry, where traditional film stock is used, the industry standard filming and projection formats are 24 frames per second. Historically, 25fps was used in some European countries. Shooting at a slower frame rate would create fast motion when projected, while shooting at a higher frame rate than 24fps would create slow motion when projected. Other examples of historical experiments in frame rates that were not widely accepted were Maxivision 48 and Showscan, developed by 2001: A Space Odyssey special effects creator Douglas Trumbull.